Busch, Adolphus
(10 July 1839–10 October 1913)
- Herman W. Ronnenberg
Extract
Busch, Adolphus (10 July 1839–10 October 1913), company executive, was born at Mayence-on-the-Rhine, Hesse (in what is now Germany), the twenty-first child of Ulrich Busch, a wealthy land and vineyard owner and merchant; his mother, Barbara Pfeiffer, was Ulrich Busch’s second wife. Educated at the Gymnasium in Mainz, the Academy of Darmstadt, and the pre-university school of Brussels, Busch spoke fluent French, German, and English and had some facility with Spanish and Italian. He briefly worked for his father and then for a mercantile house in Cologne. In 1857 he followed several older brothers to America, going directly to St. Louis, Missouri, where his first job was as a clerk on a river steamer....
